Tactical and navigation grade gyroscopes have numerous applications. They may be used, for example, to mitigate temporary lapses in onboard navigation capability, whether that is due to Global Positioning System (GPS) denial or degradation of other navigation sensors due to environmental or operational effects. In other applications the output of a gyroscope may be merged, in a suitable estimator, with the outputs of other sensors (such as a GPS receiver and a 3-axis accelerometer) to provide high accuracy navigation data. Moreover, in some applications a gyroscope may be exposed to high rotation rates (e.g., 100,000°/s), high acceleration or shock (e.g., 50 g RMS vibration and 50,000 g shock), or extremes of temperature (e.g., −54 to 85° C.). A gyroscope may also operate within tight power constraints (e.g., 250 mW) and volume constraints (e.g., 1 cm3). Some related art designs such as fiber optic gyroscopes or Coriolis vibratory gyroscopes may be too large, or insufficiently robust for such applications.
Thus, there is a need for a robust, high-performance gyroscope.